An Illustrated Guide to Mendacity and Folly in the Imperium Americanum

…And well they should. By dying prior to sentencing, Ken Lay has made it impossible for a judgement to be rendered against him…in other words, no sentence can be carried out. Back in the frontier days, this would have been called cheating the hangman. Reporters were not allowed into the funeral–not even the gala Texas one with 1500 of Ken’s closest friends, relatives and business associates–including former President, George Bush the First (so much for Georgie Porgie’s insistence that he barely knew the man–cock-a-doodledoo). And Ken was hastily cremated…OR WAS HE? With the money floating around even the bankrupt Enron gang, a substitute who looked enough like Lay could be easily found in the month after the trial. A quick shot of something that mimics a heart attack and quick substitution of the stiff for the convicted Lay, and zip, we’re off to the Cayman Islands for the rest of his life. Or perhaps Lay was going to make a deal to reduce sentence? The “powers that be” would have then wanted his mouth shut permanently. We’ll never know because of the cremation–and I’ll bet they made sure every fragment was turned into a cinder on this one.

For some baroque spectacle, we had the collapse of ex-Houston mayor, Lay friend Bob Lanier, from the vapours and an ordained minister comparing Kennyboy to Jesus Christ himself (along with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Jack Kennedy for good measure). I don’t think the irony even dented the stupidity of Bill Lawson. Certainly, tho’, unless Paris Hilton or Britney Spears come up with a grand concept sometime soon, the Lay funeral will go down as THE tasteless moment of 2006.